or a limb drops on you, or you
get in the way of a breakin' line,--though a man ain't got any business
in the bight of a line. A man don't stand much show when the end of a
inch 'n' a quarter cable snaps at him like a whiplash. I seen a feller
on Howe Sound cut square in two with a cable-end once. A broken block's
the worst, though. That generally gets the riggin' slinger, but a piece
of it's liable to hit anybody. You see them big iron pulley blocks the
haul-back cable works in? Well, sometimes they have to anchor a snatch
block to a stump an' run the main line through it at an angle to get a
log out the way you want. Suppose the block breaks when I'm givin' it to
her? Chunks uh that broken cast iron'll fly like bullets. Yes, sir,
broken blocks is bad business. Maybe you noticed the boys used the
snatch block two or three times this afternoon? We've been lucky in this
camp all spring. Nobody so much as nicked himself with an axe. Breaks
in the gear don't come very often, anyway, with an outfit in first-class
shape. We got good gear an' a good crew--about as _skookum_ a bunch as I
ever saw in the woods."

Two hundred yards distant Charlie Benton rose on a stump and semaphored
with his arms. The engineer whistled answer and stood to his levers; the
main line began to spool slowly in on the drum. Another signal, and he
shut off. Another signal, after a brief wait, and the drum rolled
faster, the line tautened like a fiddle-string, and the ponderous
machine vibrated with the strain of its effort.

Suddenly the line came slack. Stella, watching for the log to appear,
saw her brother leap backward off the stump, saw the cable whip
sidewise, mowing down a clump of saplings that stood in the bight of the
line, before the engineer could cut off the power. In that return of
comparative silence there rose above the sibilant hiss of the blow-off
valve a sudden commotion of voices.

"Damn!" the donkey engineer peered over the brush. "That don't sound
good. I guess somebody got it in the neck."

Almost immediately Sam Davis and two other men came running.

"What's up?" the engineer called as they passed on a dog trot.

"Block broke," Davis answered over his shoulder. "Piece of it near took
a leg off Jim Renfrew."

Stella stood a moment, hesitating.

"I may be able to do something. I'll go and see," she said.

"Better not," the engineer warned. "Liable to run into something
that'll about turn your stomach. What was I tellin